SF Fleet Week dazzles throngs by sea and sky

Hundreds of people braved the snaking lines Saturday at Pier 35 on the Embarcadero for the chance to explore combat ships bobbing pier-side as part of San Francisco’s annual Fleet Week, before the air show overhead diverted attention skyward and obliterated most normal-volume conversations.

Through the morning, groups of up to 20 people, mostly parents squeezing children’s hands to keep them from pushing unknown buttons, were guided by sailors serving in the Coast Guard, Navy and Royal Canadian Navy.

“For us, this is our day to day, but when we see the civilian populous get excited about learning about our work, it’s humbling,” said Melissa Werle, 38, who serves as a chief engineman and diesel mechanic on the Manchester, a Navy littoral combat ship.

Werle wore her typical work uniform — flame-retardant blue coveralls to protect her from the fuel, oil and hot equipment she works with every day. She even plopped a fire helmet on her head, readying for a fire safety presentation for droves of visitors exploring the interior of the ship, every inch of its walls and ceilings coated in silver anti-fire paneling.

“Visitors get excited and say, ‘Cool, a girl who starts engines and does combat stuff? And she has access to missiles? Cool,’” Werle said.

Werle said she and her colleagues are always welcomed warmly to San Francisco during Fleet Week. This year is her second time visiting San Francisco for the traditional fanfare, and she said a gentleman treated her and three other sailors to ice cream at Ghirardelli Square.

“We were wearing our service dress blues, the fancy uniforms, and he bought us ice cream,” she said. “It’s the little things that people do to show their appreciation.”

Karen Exley, 53, tugged her two teenage sons and husband out to the flight deck of the sprawling ship, where flags of dozens of countries swayed in the bay wind.

Exley said her family has a tradition of making the trek from Santa Rosa to watch the air show, after first exploring the Maritime Museum.

She’s been taking her sons, 16 and 18, to Fleet Week since they were infants, though now, she said, the pair can appreciate the ship tours.

On the Coast Guard cutter Forrest Rednour, people lumbered up and down narrow, steep ladders, white-knuckling the metal bars to walk through the cramped dining hall, poke their heads in to get a closer look at the bunks (with curtains for privacy), and, of course, check out the 25mm auto-cannon nestled near the nose of the vessel.

“Whoa,” said a chorus of children, peering up at the cannon jutting from the vessel’s black top, surrounded by a red semicircle warning “DANGER ZONE.”

Lt. j.g. Dayra Nazario, the cutter’s executive officer, said she hopes visitors walk away from Fleet Week with a better understanding of how each of the participating services operate.

“For the Coast Guard, our mission is protecting the coasts and the mainland of this country,” Nazario said. “It’s important that we educate people on what we do.”

By the afternoon, people were getting an education over loudspeakers on aviation history and flying formations, as combat jets, planes and helicopters with names like Orion and Poseidon twirled, rolled, looped, dived and somersaulted over the bay.

The aircraft have thwarted drug smugglers, saved drowning victims and fought terrorists, the announcers said. The booming Blue Angels were the final act.

“I don’t think this is about military might,” said Randy Omid of San Francisco. “It’s about going out with family and friends and having a good time.”

Chris Morrell, an Army veteran in town from Phoenix, said he was pleasantly surprised that San Francisco was “not a bunch of poop and hippies” as he had been warned. He called the city and show alike “beautiful.”